President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam presents photographs of the Philippines taken from an Indian satellite to Renato Solidum, Director, Philippines Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, in Manila on Sunday. — PTI

“Crash,” “Brokeback” win top awards
Los Angeles, February 5
Hollywood’s screenwriters gave their two top film awards to race drama “Crash” and gay romance “Brokeback Mountain”, setting up a showdown between the two message movies for the best movie Oscar.

Maoist strike paralyses life in Nepal
Kathmandu, February 5
A general strike called by Maoist rebels in Nepal to disrupt the upcoming local body polls paralysed normal life across the Himalayan Kingdom with educational institutes and businesses remaining close on the first day of the week-long stir today.

Snoring can break up a marriage
Washington, February 5
Preliminary results of a scientific sleep study have shown that sleep apnea does indeed put a strain on a marriage, and that couples struggling with sleep apnea have a higher divorce rate.

Laguna (Philippines), February 5
President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam today suggested a second Green Revolution in India which takes rice and wheat cultivators beyond the grain production stage to agro-food processing and gives value addition.

His comments came as the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) here announced it was developing new high-yield rice hybrids to suit Indian conditions by being drought and flood-tolerant.

Interacting with top scientists of the institute, the visiting President said Indian agriculture faced three main challenges in the time ahead: first, area under wheat and rice cultivation is estimated to come down from 17 crore hectares to 10 crore hectares by 2020, secondly irrigation water shortage and thirdly decline in the number of people in farming.

"We need a second Green Revolution whereby the farmers are taken from seed-to-grain stage involved in processing of rice and value addition. The new seeds should also match the soil condition and require less water," Kalam said.

"We should see that they (farmers) do not stop at grain production and go through the process of agro-food processing," the President said, pointing out that "I'm a farmer's son." Kalam said the farming community was not happy about stagnation in production whereas India needed to double its food grain output from 20 crore tonnes in the next 14 years.

After interacting with IRRI scientists, the President went round the Institute's complex and saw the different experiments it is conducting in coming out with high-yielding and nutrition-rich rice varieties.

He visited the experiment sites on the lush green plains of Laguna province overlooking a row of blue mountains and shook hands with a dozen farmers who were pleasantly surprised by his gesture. The President did not seem to mind the slush-filled hands of the farmers who were transplanting rice.

The Indian imprint on the IRRI, set up in 1960, is quite evident as scientists fondly remembered that internationally-reputed agriculture scientist M. S. Swaminathan had served as its Director General for six years from 1982 and India is the largest financial contributor to the Institute with $ 150,000 million per year, a figure which is set to go up soon. India has so far contributed $ 1.5 million to IRRI.

Mahbub Hossain, head of IRRI's Social Sciences Division, said the Institute hoped to address in another five years the problem of about ten per cent loss estimated at $ 1.2 billion of rice production worldwide due to drought.

"In another five years, we hope we will be able to address this problem," the economist from Bangladesh associated with IRRI for the past 14 years told PTI.

Hossain said several genes have been shown to confer improved drought tolerance in rice. The IRRI and its partners have identified lines and hybrids that yield at least 50 per cent more under stress than widely grown varieties such as "Swarna" and IR-36 varieties in India.
— PTI

Manila, February 5
The room in which A. P. J. Abdul Kalam sat, shook first vertically and then horizontally, as the Richter Scale recorded a major earthquake to give the Indian President the experience of a simulated temblor here today.

It was a different kind of experience for scientist Kalam who visited the Philippines Institute of Volcanic and Seismological Studies. The Philippines, prone to quakes and volcano eruptions, has 52 volcanoes of which 13 are active.
— PTI

Los Angeles, February 5
Hollywood’s screenwriters gave their two top film awards to race drama “Crash” and gay romance “Brokeback Mountain”, setting up a showdown between the two message movies for the best movie Oscar.

“Crash,” which looks at racial tension in Los Angeles from the points of view of different ethnic groups, won the best original screenplay award from the Writers Guild of America for its writers Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco yesterday.

“Brokeback Mountain,” about a love affair between a pair of lonesome cowboys that spanned decades, earned Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry best adapted screenplay honours from the guild.

Moresco said he felt humbled to be honoured by his peers. “To say our script is any one bit better than the others is nuts,” he said. “It’s not a competition, and we all know it.”

Likewise, Ossana took note of all the scripts and writers competing for awards and said she felt honored just to be in the same “stellar company” as the others.

The guild awards are widely watched in Hollywood because many of their members also belong to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gives out the Oscars on March 5. Together, “Crash” and “Brokeback” have scooped up many of the top honors from Hollywood’s professional groups.
— Reuters

Kathmandu, February 5
A general strike called by Maoist rebels in Nepal to disrupt the upcoming local body polls paralysed normal life across the Himalayan Kingdom with educational institutes and businesses remaining close on the first day of the week-long stir today.

The seven-party Opposition alliance and two pro-King parties have also decided to boycott the February 8 polls despite the government's assurance of providing "reliable security." Schools, colleges and markets were closed, most of the factories did not operate and public and private vehicles were off the road despite mobilisation of all security agencies, including army and the police, by the government to foil the strike. Long route buses also did not operate due to the strike.

In Kathmandu, the government took licences and even keys of hundreds of buses and taxis on the eve of the strike and threatened to take action against those drivers who did not defy the Maoists' strike, but very few vehicles could be seen on the road with their number plates covered due to the fear of Maoist reprisal.

Security personnel were heavily deployed in the capital Kathmandu with the government claiming that the security forces would reach within five minutes in case of any attack on candidates.
— PTI

Washington, February 5
Preliminary results of a scientific sleep study have shown that sleep apnea does indeed put a strain on a marriage, and that couples struggling with sleep apnea have a higher divorce rate. Researchers at the Sleep Disorders Center at Rush University Medical Center are now conducting a scientific sleep study to find out whether curing people of snoring can help save a marriage.

Rosalind Cartwright, PhD, founder of the Sleep Disorders Center, said studies had revealed that couples who struggle with sleep apnea have a higher record of broken marriages. This is a frequent problem within marriages that nobody is paying enough attention to. Can we save marriages by treating sleep apnea? It's a question we hope to answer," she said.

The Married Couples Sleep Study will be based on the evaluation of 10 couples in which the male has been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea.

As a part of the study, couples answer surveys about sleepiness, marriage satisfaction, and quality of life. They then spend the night in the sleep lab where technicians determine each partners quality and quantity of sleep. Following two weeks of treatment, the diagnostic tests and surveys are repeated.

Dr Cartwright said preliminary results had shown that sleep apnea does indeed put a strain on a marriage.

"Our early results are showing that the wife's sleep is indeed deprived due to the husband's noisy nights. This is not a mild problem. The lack of sleep for both partners puts a strain on the marriage and creates a hostile and tense situation," said Cartwright.
— ANI

Reading (USA), February 5
A man who signs his name as ‘God’ may have to surrender his driver’s licence.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation told Paul Sewell in a letter on Tuesday that he would have to turn over the licence if he didn’t provide his birth certificate and Social Security card to the agency by February 14.

The letter came less than a week after the Berks County Elections Board questioned Sewell’s ‘God’ signature on a voter registration form.

Sewell on Friday asked a Berks County court to intervene in the PennDOT matter. The department does not cite a reason in the letter and a spokeswoman declined comment. State law requires a driver to write his usual signature on the licence. The law also states the department can cancel a license if the licensee was not entitled to it, if the person failed to give required or correct information, if the person committed fraud in obtaining the license or if the license has been materially altered.
— AP